As Madeleine Peyroux caresses Dance Me To The End Of Love with her smoked-whiskey voice – it’s impossible to resist this exquisitely recorded chanteuse.

Contemporary Jazz has its fair share of great vocalists - Diana Krall, Patricia Barber, Cassandra Wilson and Norah Jones to name but a few – but there’s something about the impish Peyroux that conjures up Amy Winehouse in her prime – effortlessly beguiling her audience with an easy delivery and a razor sharp band. With Bernie Grundman mastering and top notch production this is an open and effortless sounding album with room filling scale.

Songwriter Jesse Harris and producer Larry Klein co-wrote the equally tasty Don’t Wait To Long – ace guitarist Dean Parks flicking away in the background as Larry Goldings squeezes the Wurlitzer organ. Up next is a ragtime ditty Don’t Cry Baby and a gorgeous version of Dylan’s You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go.

Her sassy choices take a turn into genius with Elliott Smith’s Between The Bars and old time country gets a polish as she takes on Hank Williams in Weary Blues. Italy’s Nina Rota is represented by the beautiful This Is Heaven To Me and Peyroux’s version of I’ll Look Around has classy percussion brushing from Scott Amendola giving it a sweetness as it scuffs across the room.

But if one track sums up the Peyroux vibe it would be Lonesome Road, her band sound like Django Reinhardt and his quartet fronting a slightly sozzled Billie Holliday, and pulling it off.

Side A:
1. Dance Me to the End of Love
2. Don't Wait Too Long
3. Don't Cry Baby
4. You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go
5. Between the Bars
6. No More

Side B:
7. Lonesome Road
8. J'Ai Deux Amours
9. Weary Blues
10. I'll Look Around
11. Careless Love
12. This Is Heaven to Me